I'm creating a lot of little surfaces that get added to a layout ( int this case a header footer layout), animated, then need to go away. However, I'm not sure how to remove the surfaces once added?
Kraig is right about using a RenderController when possible, but I would not suggest it for your case. RenderController works well with large layouts and not so much for small particles and such. RenderController only shows one view at a time.
I have asked about this on the IRC channel and it turns out the way I do it, feels really hacky, but is still the recommended most straight forward approach. The idea is to just redefine the render function to return null.
// surface to remove
surface.render = function(){ return null; }
That's it!
Just make sure you remove all references in your code as well!
I often do it from an object..
delete littleSurfaces['little-surface-key']
FWIW The more advanced approach is to actually define a view that controls specifically the surfaces that get rendered. You do this by defining the render function on a custom view that returns what is known as a renderSpec. A renderSpec is a list of hashes that define the surfaces that will be rendered. The example everyone points to is the Flipper class. Take a look at Flippers render function..
https://github.com/Famous/views/blob/master/Flipper.js
Good Luck!